Post Tarot Camp

Hey ya'll! This is my first time to write on my blog after my sojourn over to NYC for The Reader's Conference 2006. I wish I could have taken all of ya with me. We had such a good time! I got to hang out with my heros and heroines of the Tarot elite and could hardly believe my good luck. I have some pics here to share with you. The pic that's up above is one of me about to go out to the Rachael Pollack portion of the Tarot weekend. Look at me cheesin' there.

So, I got to NYC on Friday morning about 9:30 a.m., and should have been completely knackered from my trip, but I wasn't. I was so excited to just be there that I was bright eyed and somewhat bushy tailed. I registered and then went out and talked to one of the other attendees in the gazebo while the conference organizers were getting all the stuff together for us to go into the main room. The first session was about what we were all going to learn while we were there and from whom. I was star-struck!

We had a lunch break at which time I finally got to take a shower, and I was so glad! Flying overnight and having nowhere to lay my head was a different experience for me. :) I'm a "shower a day kinda gal."

Above is a pic of me with Bob Place. He spoke about doing 3 card readings in a way that I was totally unfamiliar with, and I got a lot out of his lecture. I am a big fan of the Alchemical Tarot. I'm a sad Panda that I don't actually own the deck, but had to borrow one from my Magus in order to get to better know Bob's work before the class. Anyway, it didn't take anything away from my enjoyment of the artwork (I just didn't want to give it back!). But I bought the Tarot of the Saints by Bob while I was there. Mind you, I didn't feel I could part with enough money to buy the English edition, but he had the "Tarot el Santos" which he was selling for half price that I scooped up with a high degree of zeal. Who knows? Maybe I'll take Spanish. :)



So we were all seated at big round tables in this ballroom type area at the Marriott, and one of the women at my table was the one you see me with in the picture above. Her name is Elinor, and I just LOVE her. She and I hit it off big time. I guess she's been a student of Ruth Ann's and Wald's (Tarot School - Email me if you want the link to their site) for quite some time and she knew everyone. She was my reading partner on one of the lessons and we had a nice dynamic.

Later that evening, I went out to dinner at a diner with Rachael Pollack, her agent Zoe, Robert Place, Elinor and I guess that was the group. Anyway, it felt kind of surreal to be sitting next to Rachael, who's work I had admired for quite some time. Nice, conversational style writing that works very well with me.

I DID wind up adding to my Tarot collection while I was there. I purchased an "Animal Wisdom" Tarot by Lisa Hunt. It's a nice one, but wasn't the prize of the weekend. Rather, a Tarot of a Moongarden deck was the prize that I was so happy to walk away with for the weekend. It was given to me by a gal from England named "Gaynor." Poor Gaynor....I didn't give her a moment's peace about this deck after seeing it in front of her at the table and her saying that "she didn't like it." I bugged her mercilessly to sell it to me. In the end, she wound up giving it to me for a card reading. What a great trade. The husband and I are planning to go to England for about a week in September. Maybe there will be a look-up opportunity while I'm over there. I sure hope so. Gaynor's a kick in the ass. Here we are:

There is so much more to tell about Tarot camp, and I'm not really in a mood to write too much of a play-by-play at the moment....perhaps later. Or at least I will put some stuff on my static website for you to look at. There was really a lot of good information given at this event. A couple more pics and I promise I'll be done here.

Next is a picture of me and Lon du Marquette - the author of "The Chicken Kabbala" and "The Thoth Tarot" and about a dozen other books, Lon is revered around the world as a ceremonial magician, a mystic and an all-round nice guy. He taught us to sing the name of "Ganesh" to the tune of pop goes the weasel three times through in order to reach the mystical number of repitition, 108. :) That's just how this dude rolls!

Now the pictures of me with these various folks are not the most flattering for me, and normally I wouldn't be sharing them at all, but I'm just too proud of the great learning time I had to be held back from sharing by some neurotic need to look good in pictures. I just DON'T and that's certainly not a new revelation.

Anyway, that was Lon above, and for those of you who are Mary Greer fans - eat your heart out that we had a nice round-table session with Mary on Sunday morning. I can't remember for the life of me what the heck we talked about, because the fecker was at 7:30 in the morning, and I never actually got off of west coast time while I was on the East coast, but I did my best.

Here's a picture of me and Mary Greer after I purchased and got her to sign her latest offering "21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card" - I haven't read it yet, but the premise is BRILLIANT. Very apprapo and I believe it will be a nice catalyst for me to take my own reading in some other directions that I'm not even able to think of quite yet.


And last, but not least is a picture of me with Eileen, my first reading partner. She and I did the initial reading for the conference with each other, and the last reading for the conference with each other. She's a real mensch too. I wanted to purchase Lon's Thoth Tarot book, but had tapped my funds out buying all sorts of other good stuff at the conference. Well, Eileen won the book in a raffle drawing on Sunday before we all headed out of there, and she GAVE IT TO ME! Thanks Eileen! :) She had already purchased one for herself the day before. I dashed out the door immediately to catch Lon so he could sign it for me. He wound up drawing a little charicature of himself on the inside cover, which I thought was a very nice touch. Aliester Crowley was probably rolling over, wherever he is. :)

So that's about all I have time to write at the moment. I have a lovely and very special house guest arriving on my doorstep this evening, and, as you witchy types already know, this weekend isn't the one to be staying in the house messing with the computer. It's Beltaine for Heaven's Sake! Time to get out there and really enjoy the gifts of the heavenly father and the earthly mother. Time to really get down with some gettin' down!

So, Happy Beltaine to all of you! And, you lurkers out there....you know who you are - You are welcome here any and every time.

Love, and hugs,
Asradel
The Good Witch of the West